BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Sunday accused the UPA of crushing voices of dissent and claimed that the present situation in the country was akin to 1975 when Emergency was imposed.
Recalling the Emergency, Mr Joshi, also chairman of Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said a similar situation has emerged now. “Any voice of dissent is being crushed, brutally, ruthlessly by the central government.”
Alleging that ministers “have become arrogant”, he said the lathicharge on peaceful protesters at Ram Leela Maidan showed the government has “scant respect for democratic values and can go to any extent in crushing any criticism, howsoever democratic, and peaceful against it.”
He claimed as PAC chairman he had the unprecedented experience of Congress suppressing and trying to scuttle the PAC report on the 2G scam. “It is most disgraceful. This has never happened... The PAC has never functioned under the dictates of any minister or party,” he said.
The PAC, Mr Joshi said, was a highly respected constitutionally set up body with a mandate to look into any activities on misappropriation of public funds.
He alleged some Congress ministers had tried to influence members in the panel to oppose the 2G report.
Not accepting the report as it was against the government and a minister’s comment that it should be thrown in the dustbin was “shocking”. It is an “ominous situation.”
“Today it is the PAC report that is being spoken of being throw into the dustbin... Tomorrow it would be the laws or the judgement of Supreme Court and even the Constitution itself, he said.
Mr Joshi said the BJP would not allow “any attempts to subvert democracy” nor people rights’ to protest wrong policies of the government and the same would invite “dire consequences.”
On the leaked CAG report on the Krishna Godavari basin, he said if it was true, discussions must be held on when the audit started, when the first comments by the government came and so forth.